Getting a lifetime sub on a S1 in 2012

Well first let me say hello again. I contributed a few posts to this forum a long time ago. Today I typed in my email address into the lost password form and amazingly enough my account still existed. And then I logged in.... Last login: 3/2002 the page says! So basically I have been in a 10 year lurk mode.

Anyway, I came back for some advice on my S1, a HDR31202 that I got way back in late 2001. My folks were using it up until last year when they got UVERSE. I was thinking about resurrecting it and giving it to a friend who just got analog basic cable. Since it has a relatively new 160gb drive and a trusty old TivoNet card, I figure that it is good to go for a few more years.

My question is this: Are there any deals to be had with Tivo if I want to get a lifetime subscription for an S1 in 2012? I see that Tivo just recently changed the prices and a lifetime now goes for a cool $499. Obviously this is out of the question for an S1 that might go up in smoke at any time. Or am I better off just getting another S1 that already has lifetime and using mine for parts?

Probably get another S1 already with lifetime.. But if they're truly using only analog cable, might as well get a S2DT, so they'll have two tuners. (It does NOT work with two cable boxes for example, so largely loses its dual-tunerness in that way.)

Or even, heck, get a S3 or TivoHD.. Those will work fine with analog cable. (The Elite will not, I don't remember if the old Premiere will.)
I used my S3 (currently dead) and TivoHD with analog cable for quite a while. (I got them when they had lifetime upgrade offers years ago.)

Yea I can confirm that it is pure analog basic. Just the locals along with CSPAN, shopping, and maybe WGN & TBS too. So I was thinking that the S1s capabilities would be a good match there. And I hate wasting otherwise good hardware. I should have got the lifetime sub on the front end, but it seemed like a lot back then when I was still a student. Is there no way to get Tivo to bend on the price of a lifetime for the remainder of this old girl's life? After all it was subbed for almost 10 years, so its not like they didn't make money off of me!

Yea I can confirm that it is pure analog basic. Just the locals along with CSPAN, shopping, and maybe WGN & TBS too. So I was thinking that the S1s capabilities would be a good match there. And I hate wasting otherwise good hardware. I should have got the lifetime sub on the front end, but it seemed like a lot back then when I was still a student. Is there no way to get Tivo to bend on the price of a lifetime for the remainder of this old girl's life? After all it was subbed for almost 10 years, so its not like they didn't make money off of me!

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give them a call and see what they say. Never know what they might tell you.

I wouldn't get Product Lifetime on any but the latest model TiVos (Premiere and Elite) or maybe a TiVo HD, or go out of my way to get a Series 1 with Product Lifetime.

For analog cable (not that I'd do that, unless economically pushed), I would get a TiVo HD or Premiere, and hook an antenna up to get broadcast channels in HD, as well as analog cable. For just analog cable, a Series 2 would be better to get.

I managed to snag a good deal to upgrade my subbed S2 to lifetime last year by ..ahem.. negotiating with Tivo's retention folks. But in this case it is probably more of an uphill battle given that the S1 that I have is not currently subbed. I will go that route as a last resort. I should have tried the same tactic I did with the S2 on the S1. Damn you hindsight!

I agree that analog cable is on its way out. Around here I foresee basic 'lifeline' analog (that is locals + cspan, shopping, jesus, etc.) kicking around for at least several more years. 'Expanded' analog basic I agree is definitely on the endangered species list.

But as I said this customer is on my 'friends & family' freebie plan so my target price to get the deal done limited to the two figures range. I will keep on the lookout for a used lifetime S1 or S2 (dual tuner would be nice) on this board. Anything above that is overkill for the intended audience.

In my area, there are no analog signals at all. Once they fully transition, they are 100% digital. I think that many cablecos want to get rid of the legacy equipment ASAP once their investment is in place.

I agree that there are a lot fewer days ahead than behind for analog cable. But around here expanded basic in analog is still 75% alive. So my logic is that lifeline basic still has maybe 5 years left. By then almost all tvs in the field will have built in qam tuners and dtas will go for a song. Additionally, a lot of the old folks who would complain the most will have moved on too. In this case an S1 should serve well in the role to record from lifeline analog basic for a few years. That was the design criteria.

I'm surprised you still have analog cable today, let alone 5 years from now. Cable companies are rapidly killing all analog. Unless you have some mom&pop cable company, I wouldn't count on analog existing tomorrow.

I'm not going to argue with you, just stating the facts that I have observed and the hypothesis that I have made based on those facts. The cable co in question is Charter, and their strategy has been to kill off analog channels one at a time, ever so slowly. They don't want the revolt that would occur if one day their analog customers woke up to static. So the way they are doing it is to gently nudge analog customers into signing up for digital boxes.... "I'm so sorry, but lifetime movie network is only available on digital now, would you like me to schedule an appointment to hook one up for you free of charge?"

Case in point, my folks had expanded basic with no digital boxes (and the lifetime lacking S1 Tivo until last summer. Then one day they killed the speed channel on analog. My dad was not happy, so I explained the options which basically came down to Charter with their digital boxes/dvrs or UVERSE. Either way complexity and cost was going to increase, but in the end UVERSE won out for them.

So you can see that Charter is not going to pull the rug suddenly and have a bunch of pissed off customers leave them in a huff. And based on all my observations, in my market, I envision that expanded basic will die off in the next 2-3 years. While the last holdouts with 'lifeline basic' will probably have no more than 5 years left. And by the end of that time, they will probably only have a dozen channels to pick from.

I'm surprised you still have analog cable today, let alone 5 years from now. Cable companies are rapidly killing all analog. Unless you have some mom&pop cable company, I wouldn't count on analog existing tomorrow.

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I'm on Comcast cable in the SF Bay Area, and we have analog into the low 30-channels.. I think 33 or so. Mostly OTA channels, but a couple of other useful ones, e.g. Discovery.

We "switched to digital" a few years ago.. and what I said is here still remains.
BEFORE that, I used my S3 & TivoHD entirely as analog recorders.. (I got them back when the
lifetime transfers were happening). I got basically all of the "extended basic" channels I was used to in analog (MTV, CNN, E!, Comedy Central, etc..) I knew all along there were other digital channels I was missing, but the occasional glitch makes digital channels more annoying than analog ones, even though I realize that 99% of the time they look far better.

No. I have no easy way to check. Even before the "official" switchover, I wasn't using any analog channels. The few remaining analog channels were simulcast in digital and my CableCARDed TiVos always used the digital ones.

I have no reason to doubt the validity of the letter they sent me announcing the switchover date as April 9.

We "switched to digital" a few years ago.. and what I said is here still remains.
BEFORE that, I used my S3 & TivoHD entirely as analog recorders.. (I got them back when the
lifetime transfers were happening). I got basically all of the "extended basic" channels I was used to in analog (MTV, CNN, E!, Comedy Central, etc..) I knew all along there were other digital channels I was missing, but the occasional glitch makes digital channels more annoying than analog ones, even though I realize that 99% of the time they look far better.

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All we had left in analog was local stuff. And yes, I checked that. While I wouldn't put anything past Comcast, I can't think of any reason for them to announce this and not do it.